1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information storage apparatus for storing information acquired, for example, by a vehicle-mounted camera and/or microphone in a memory medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
There have been developed for practical use apparatuses having a so-called anti-theft function that effects, upon detection of unusual conditions such as theft to a parked vehicle, for example, upon detection of unusual conditions such as a shock to a vehicle and vehicle break-in committed by third parties other than the user, photographing of vehicle interior by means of a camera attached within the vehicle interior, and then records taken images on a recording medium. Such a technique is disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publications JP-A 2006-123650, JP-A 2001-61129, JP-A 2007-157113, and JP-A 2006-235732, for example.
Assuming that vehicle interior is photographed not only at the moment of detection of unusual conditions of a parked vehicle but also in advance of occurrence of vehicle unusual conditions and taken images are stored in a memory medium such as RAM, and, upon detection of unusual conditions, images taken before and after the moment of detection are recorded on a nonvolatile recording medium, in this case, it is possible to obtain images representing the conditions of the vehicle during the time the user stayed away from it. Accordingly, such a system is effective in conducting analysis of vehicle unusual conditions. However, a vehicle is brought to a stop with its engine switched off, and thus battery charging cannot be effected during the stop. Therefore, if photographing is carried out continuously in advance of detection of unusual conditions, the battery may possibly run out.